Doses of medication over prescribed periods vary as a function of the type of medication and the condition of the patient. Patients are often required to take a plurality of doses over different periods of a day, and this often leads to confusion. It may be difficult for a patient to respect the prescription details (e.g., intake time, quantity) when the doses and the types of medication are numerous.
One well known method used by pharmacists to overcome this problem is to provide the patient with a dose pack having an array of receptacles, with each receptacle corresponding to a particular time of a day at which medication is to be taken. Such packs typically contain four receptacles per day for seven days, and these receptacles are in the form of sealed cups filled with appropriate medication by pharmacists as a function of the prescription, as determined by physicians' prescription.
The process of preparing these dose packs is labor-intensive, in that each receptacle must be filled individually by hand. Therefore, although the dose pack facilitates the intake of medication by patients, a substantial amount of time is required to fill these packs by pharmacists.
Accordingly, a system has been provided in order to fill such dose packs. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 6,805,259, issued on Oct. 19, 2004, to Stevens et al., discloses a medication tablet dispenser having a plurality of stacked compartments, each containing a type of medication. The stack of compartments is vibrated so as to position oral-solid medication items in a dispensing position within the respective compartments. A funnel is positioned below the stack of compartments so as to receive a discharge of medication from the compartments. Once the funnel has the appropriate dosage of medication for a receptacle of a dose pack to be filled, the oral-solid medication items in the funnel are released into one of the receptacles. The receptacle is typically displaceable in planar translation, such that the dose pack is displaced to register a different receptacle with the funnel. The operation is repeated for each receptacle.